


Weaker Every Time I Stand

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Schizophrenia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 11:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11735772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	Weaker Every Time I Stand

“Fuck!” I screamed, hurling a vase at the door just as it opened. “Fuck!”

Spencer ducked to the side, mouth agape and staring in horror at the sight of my tear-stained face. “What happened? Nicki, what happened?” I crumpled to the floor, legs like jelly as the weight of the world crushed me down again. Again. Again. I’m so tired - and my knees get weaker every time I stand up. While the tears streamed silently down my face, Spencer whispered to me again. “What happened?”

“My uncle,” I whispered.

He knew. Spencer was the only one I knew that I could trust would pass no judgement, not only because of his own background with his mother, but because of who he was as a human being. He cradled the back of my head as I sobbed. “What happened with him now?”

When you were a child, the cops had found him states away from where he lived, praying the rosary and walking around naked in cemetery. At that time, he’d been committed to a facility and given the medication he needed and for years and years he’d been okay, but over the past few months his life had taken a downturn once again, and you were states away with no way to help at all. Even if you had been home, you had no authority to help him. “My mother had to commit him again,” I wept. “And I can’t do anything to help. She doesn’t deserve this. She’s had enough of this. It’s been so long…” My voice cracked into a million little pieces as I vomited out the words that had been built up over the course of the past few months. “And then I feel bad because I’m mad at my uncle and I feel like I don’t have a right to be because he can’t help the fact that his brain isn’t healthy. And then there’s my grandfather, who has to watch his son go through this a second time, and I’m so afraid that watching this again is going to kill him. I’m just a jumble of thoughts and I don’t have any power to do anything and you know how much being helpless kills me!” I hadn’t even realized how loud my voice had gotten until the end, my throat so full of fire and bile, burning and receding in waves and bringing fresh tears to my eyes. Spencer didn’t flinch once, only hugging me closer and snaking his hands into my hair as he rubbed my scalp.

“You have every right to feel angry,” he said softly. “Maybe not angry at him, but at the situation. It’s not fair. Believe me, I know more than most how unfair it is.” His voice was so soft, so broken and resigned after all these years of dealing with the same things you had, expect much more closely that you would ever have to.

How did we both end up here? So helpless.

“All I can do is sit by and watch my mother cry. He tried to call the cops on her, Spence,” I cried, pulling away and wiping my tears away. “She blocked his car in and he tried to call the cops on her. He said he hated her. My mom doesn’t deserve this.”

“No, she doesn’t.” He’d met her before a couple times, so he knew what I knew, that my mother was deserving of everything good in the world, and yet life kept throwing her into the fire. ”But it can’t be controlled.”

I huffed into his shoulder and felt new tears forming behind my eyes. “I know,” I said, beating my fists against his chest. “That’s what’s so frustrating. I hate having to let the world control everything, especially with this fucked up system. My uncle is in this limbo where he can talk his way out of things - to the outside world he seems okay, but he’s not. He got out before because he said he’d take his medication and then he didn’t…this morning…that’s why my mom had to have him committed again. His brain can’t help it, but that doesn’t make me any less angry and sad and confused. I just…Spence, what do I do?”

“Be there for your mother as much as you can,” he said, cradling my face in his hands. “That’s all you can do.”

Bullshit. It was bullshit because it was true. That’s all you could do. I could tell that Spencer’s heart broke for me, because he knew. He knew how difficult it was. After I wiped the tears away again, knowing they would come back again, I got up off the floor and went to clean up the vase I’d broken. “Shit!” A sharp edge cut my hand, the blooding pooling slowly into the dip in my palm. Spencer leapt up from the floor and came to kneel again by my side.

“Come here.” He took me by the hand and made me sit on the couch as he cleaned and bandaged up my hand. “Stay here. I’ll clean up the vase.” Helpless. Again. Always helpless. While Spencer picked up the pieces of my broken vase, I began to sob again, stopping only when I felt my friend kiss the back of my head. “It’s cleaned up. Can I do anything else?”

“Can you pick up the pieces of my life? Make my uncle take his medication? Make schizophrenia non-existent?” Each time I asked, he shook his head. “How about stay here tonight so I don’t have to stew in my own thoughts all alone?”

“That I can do,” he said. 

It took me forever to get off the couch, my muscles too tired to move - too weighty. Eventually though, I made it inside to get changed and came back out to the couch to see Spencer sitting there with a book and a cup of tea for me. “Come here,” he whispered, extending his hand and flipping back a blanket with the other. I grabbed the cup of tea and joined him, feeling his warmth against my overly sensitized nerves and nearly crying again. “Just drink your tea and let me do the rest, okay?”

Spencer pulled me against him, propped up slightly against his chest so I could sip at my tea while he read to me. As his voice soothed my nerves, I started to fall asleep - still helpless, still angry, still frustrated and sad, but knowing that through it all, I wasn’t alone.


End file.
